The Parrot Screens at the Le Palace, Montataire, France

Co-directed by Darin J. Sallam and Amjad Al-Rasheed, The Parrot will screen at Le Palace, Montataire, France, on Saturday, September 28 at 2:30 PM. Marking 30 years of Twin City Fund, the screening comes as a result of an invitation from Twin Cities Fund, which operates in Montataire and Dheisheh Refugee Camp, to the Festival Ciné-Palestine, Paris, in order to screen a selection of Palestinian short films, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Twin Cities Fund. The screening will be presented by two participants from a workshop held by the festival, earlier this year.

The Parrot had its world premiere at the 13th Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) within the Muhr Short competition. The film is funded by the German Foundation Robert Bosch Stiftung (RBS), which funds the best German-Arab film projects. The Parrot received the 2015 Film Prize of RBS in the short fiction category. The film won the Jury Award at the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, Minnesota, and the 7th Malmö Arab Film Festival in Sweden. It also won the Best Short Film award at the Palestine Cinema Days, within its Sunbird competition.

The Parrot tells the story of a Mizrahi Jewish family who emigrates from Tunisia and tries to settle into their new life in Haifa, Palestine in 1948. Directed by Darin J. Sallam and Amjad Al-Rasheed (Jordan) who co-written it with Rifqi Assaf. The film stars the Tunisian Hend Sabry, the Palestenian Ashraf Barhoum, Yasmine Ben Amara, Eyad Hourani, Firas Taybeh, Lara Sawalha, and Ahmad Al-Madani.

The film is a German/Jordanian co-production between the German company Monokel (Roman Roitman) and the Jordanian company TaleBox (Deema Azar). The film is distributed in the Arab world by MAD Solutions.

Darin Sallam is a Jordanian director and writer who holds a BA in Graphic Design and received her MFA degree from the Red Sea Institute for Cinematic Arts (RSICA). Darin made five award-winning shorts including Still Alive and The Dark Outside, which screened at many eminent international film festivals. Her latest short fiction film The Parrot, a co-written and directed project, received Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, 2015. Farha is Sallam's ongoingfeature film which received many awards and took part in several international and regional film markets. Based in Jordan, Sallam is a co-founder and Managing Partner of TaleBox, a Jordanian production company.

Amjad Al-Rasheed is an award-winning Jordanian director and producer. He received his MFA degree from the Red Sea Institute for Cinematic Arts (RSICA). After receiving the Best Scenarist Award for Short Fiction at the First Film Production competition in Amman in 2005, Amjad started his career as a director, producer and production designer of music videos and some short and feature films. In 2007, Amjad was selected to attend the Berlinale Talents at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival. His directing credits include five short films that screened at international film festivals. In 2013, he directed the TV show The Rania Show (2013), which is considered as one of the most popular comedy shows in Jordan. Amjad is currently working on his debut feature Inshallah A Boy - A Chapter from The Fabled Life of Nawal. In December 2016, he was listed on ScreenDaily's 'Arab Stars of Tomorrow' among five emerging film talents from the Arab world.